OneNotes
by ChuckingDaffodils
Summary: Mr. Schue gets each Glee club member to retell their first encounter with music. Bunch of one-shots put together. Please R&R, you'll make my life.
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

"Let's get started, guys."

Will Schuester clapped his hands together to capture the attention of the twelve students, eleven of whom sat on blue chairs at the side of the room, and one of whom sat to the side in his wheelchair.

"Now, we've still got a few weeks until Regionals.' said Will. 'And I know you guys have all been preparing for it a lot, and I really appreciate that. But I thought today we'd try something different.'

'I know that some of you get all caught up in competition around the time of Sectionals, or Regionals, and that's fine.' he continued. 'But sometimes you just need to take time and focus on the music."

"What do you mean, Mr. Schue?' asked Rachel cautiously. 'We always focus on our music, and our choreography."

"We're always focused on that." concured Artie.

Dozens of voices raised in agreement, and Will held up his hands.

"Guys, I know, I know.' he said. 'But today's exercise is going to be different. For the next forty minutes, I want you to all head to the Spanish classroom, and write down the story of when you first discovered music. The length of the work doesn't have a minimum amount of words: you can write six words, or you can write six-hundred. All that matters is that you can recall an event in your life that introduced you to music."

"Yes, Puck."

"Um, I don't get this. If I wanted to write an essay, I'd have joined the Writing club. I thought Glee was about singing and stuff."

Several other voices murmured in agreement.

"Well, I think this is an excellent opportunity to stretch our talents.' announced Rachel, who got out of her seat to face the classroom. 'Personally, I find this exercise as a chance to work on my storytelling. If I plan to become a famous singer-songwriter, I would assume that its best to start retelling stories at an early age. Many songs are based on the writer's personal experiences, as this essay is." Rachel smiled broadly at her peers, and then sat down.

"Excellently put, Rachel.' Will praised. Rachel beamed from her seat. 'So, hop to it. I've got pens and paper in the class."


	2. Rachel

A/N: Thanks for all the positive reviews so far! Your enthusiasm makes me happy. :)

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_**One: Rachel Berry**_

Rachel bustled eagerly into the Spanish classroom, book tucked beneath one arm. Pulling out a chair from the end of the front row, she sat down eagerly and reached for her pencil case.

"Hey, Rachel, I got you a pen." Finn Hudson grinned sheepishly moments later, as the remaining members filed into the room, opting for seats in the back two rows. This left Rachel and Finn as the sole occupants of the front end of the classroom.

"Oh, no thank you, Finn.' she answered sweetly, fingers folded tightly in front of her chest. 'I have a special pen for moments like these."

"Oh.' Finn nodded in an effort to show that he understood what Rachel was saying. When Rachel's words had fully sunk in, though, he added, bewildered: 'Wait, you have a _pen_ especially for Glee Club?"

Rachel giggled.

"Oh, no, Finn.' she said, shaking her head. 'This pen is the pen that I use whenever teachers call for a personal essay. It helps me convey thoughts from my mind to paper quickly, and is very efficient."

Finn nodded his head again in the same manner as he had before.

"You have,' Mr Schue announced loudly from the front of his classroom. A few conversations lingered here and there, though they were not loud enough to overlap with Mr Schue's instructions. '… forty minutes until Glee Club is over. You can stay as long as you like, but I've got to get home by six-thirty. Remember, I don't want stories about why you _like_ music. That's not reaching far enough inside you. Tell me when you first really connected to music."

"Go."

Rachel grinned. How wonderful it felt to bring the pen to paper: the first few flourishes to make up a name were pure heaven to Rachel, and she grinned wider at her paper.

"_Rachel Berry_" she wrote at the top of the page. Then, as per her custom, she opened her Glee binder and pulled out a sheet of golden star stickers. Removing the one in the top left corner ever so carefully, she placed it directly following her name.

"Why do you put a star after your name, Rachel?' asked Finn quietly, His head was buried underneath his arm in an act of frustration until that very moment, when he had turned his head so that his nose was now inches away from Rachel's adequate signature.

"It's a metaphor,' Rachel whispered in reply, wiping a smidge of dirt off the star with her pinky finger. 'A metaphor that represents me becoming a star."

'Oh.' said Finn simply. 'I've always thought it's like the stars that you used to get in piano classes. You know, once you finished learning a song, your teacher would give you a sticker. And she would put it in your songbook. I was never too good in piano, because I always kept forgetting to practice."

"Oh, yes, I know exactly what you're talking about.' she answered in a low voice, her eyes focused on Mr. Schue, who was giving Finn and Rachel strict looks for talking. 'But, Finn, perhaps you can tall your piano stories on paper. I personally would love to start on my essay."

"I admire that you're so quick to share your stories with me, though." she added pleasantly. Finn returned to his sheet without a second glance at Rachel. She could see him begin to doodle squares and stickmen in the margins of his page.

The truth was, though, that Rachel had never earned a gold star in her songbook for piano. And it was the only time that Rachel Berry felt like she had truly failed.

"_As you may know, Mr. Schuester, I have two gay dads. When they decided that they wanted a child, they went to every extreme in order to create the perfect child. Once I was born, they instantly registered me for as many classes as possible that would heighten my artistic talent and increase all chances of out-shining my peers. The first class I was ever put in was Baby Ballet, at the age of eight months. In three years time, the list of classes had greatly expanded, and by my fourth birthday, my dads had come to the conclusion that I needed to expand my talents into the field of musical instruments before it was too late. They gifted me three new lessons for that birthday: flute, violin, and piano._

_At promptly 3 o'clock the next day, I opened the gate of 1335 Birchwood Crescent, and stepped confidently up to the dark wooden door. I knocked three times, and a young woman, assumingly Miss Florence, answered the door. _

"_Come in,' she said. 'You must be Rachel." _

_I nodded firmly, held my piano books tightly under my arms, and headed directly for the piano on the other side of the living room. I was completely prepared to become a virtuoso within the next hour and a half. With my fingers poised above the keys, I looked up at my teacher. She did not join me at the bench, as I had expected. Instead, she simply smiled nicely, and lowered the key cover gently, pushing my fingers out of the way._

"_Oh, no, Rachel, I'm afraid we won't be playing on __**this**__ piano.' she said. 'We'll be playing on my special piano."_

_My insides were burning with frustration and confusion as Miss Florence took out a plastic, multicolored, Fisher-Price piano. There were thirteen keys on this 'piano': eight multi-colored keys, which were obviously supposed to be the white keys, and five keys, ranging from a sickly green to a repulsive orange, which not only clashed terribly with the other keys, but they also sat among the "white" keys, when they clearly were stand ins for the black keys, and should have been positioned on top of the other keys. _

"_Rachel,' said Miss Florence. 'We will be using this for now. Let me show you how to position your fingers on a piano."_

_Although I knew exactly how to position my fingers on a piano, as one of my dads used to be the pianist in a fairly successful philharmonic orchestra before he met my other dad, I did not tell this to Miss Florence. She seemed to be content by simply showing the correct angles for the left dorsal knuckle to be bent at. I figured that if I remained content and agreeable, she would see that using an actual piano in a piano lesson would be a better use of the time than playing with toys from the local Gymboree. _

_I kept to this motto through every piano lesson that followed that year. But Miss Florence was strict on her rule that I was never to come within one foot of the piano keys. So although I was winning dance competitions and earning scholarships to theater courses, Miss Florence's toy piano remained. I felt as if it was the frozen piece of Slushie that remains in your hair throughout the day, no matter how many washroom breaks you take to rinse out your hair. _

_ Finally, once I turned six years old, Miss Florence introduced me to her "dear old friend: Mrs Piano, and her special friend, Mr Piano Bench." The first few classes dealt with reaching all the keys on the regular piano, but by the next week, Miss Florence had a surprise: she had chosen a song for me to learn on the piano. The song was from the musical Annie, a show to which I have never been too particular about. But it was a fairly simple song, and Miss Florence only wanted me to play the first couple of bars. Miss Florence was impressed, and moved me to her more advanced piano class with two other students, age 12 and 8, sisters who had started piano three months before. I was ecstatic: after two years of solo lessons, I finally had comparative advantage. I was sure that the two other students did not feel for piano lessons as I did, and that within three months, I would be winning piano competitions across the region._

_A requirement for the new advanced class was to have a parent verify that the student had practiced at least 10 minutes worth of scales or songs every night. This was hardly a problem for me: between school, dance, theater, flute, violin, harp, clarinet, guitar, Girl Guides, and vocal lessons, I had all the free time in the world. _

_However, the first day with my homework from piano coincidentally also happened to be my dad's birthday party. We all celebrated by going down to a organic restaurant. The night after that, I ended up staying at the dance studio longer than planned. And so it continued: Now this may shock you, Mr. Schue, as you know that I am very precise and very responsible when it comes to work, but I did not complete a single night of piano homework until past my seventh birthday. I had hoped Miss Florence would simply pass by all of my missing assignments, but the lack of practice began to show in the pieces that I performed during class. I was becoming more and more off-tempo with every note, more and more off-key with every bar, and more and more ecstatic every time that piano class ended. Miss Florence __**did**__ notice these. She and I spoke several times over the last months of my lessons, mostly consisting her stern lectures on how I was becoming an irresponsible child and how I was no longer the sweet child that I had been years before, and although it was clear that she disliked me, I always wanted to receive approval from her, some form of recognition and approval. The other girls regularly received gold stars for completing their assignments: that was what I wanted. I wanted a gold star at the top of the page, placed inches from my name, so that when one of my dads arrived to bring me home, I could hold up the sheet proudly and say:_

"_Look, Dad, I'm a star!"_

_But it never happened. So one Thursday after lessons, I confronted Miss Florence on why I did not get any stars. Along with the obvious fact that I did not complete assignments, Miss Florence said sweetly that I was a nauseatingly brash child that perceived that I had more talent than I actually did. _

_To be fair she did not say this to my face: it was my dads who received this information. To put it lightly, they responded with some obscene comments, and pulled me out of the program. Since then, I have made a choice to abstain from the use of a piano, but I have taken two lessons from my three years of piano: One, gold stars next to my name give such a high level of elation that even multiple doses of pseudoephedrine could not; and Two, never take music lessons from an amateur. _

_A few weeks after my last piano lesson, I _

"Uh, Rachel?' Mr Schuester stood at the door of the Spanish classroom, books under one arm while his other arm rested on the wall next to the light switch. 'I appreciate your enthusiasm, but it's past six. The janitors need to clean the school."

Rachel looked up from her paper, pen hovering above where she had left off.

"If I could please have ten more minutes to finish, Mr Schue.' Rachel asked. 'I'm practically finished."

"Rachel,' Mr Schue scolded gently: after all, Rachel hadn't done anything wrong. 'I think you've done enough."

Rachel sighed, but ignored his instructions.

"_Just another fruitless attempt to crush my dreams._" thought Rachel as she continued to write.

"Rachel!' Mr Schue's scolding was harsher this time as he made his way through the desks and stood over Rachel's right shoulder. 'I asked you to put down your pen. Stop writing."

"Fine.' Rachel scoffed, intolerant of Mr. Schue's continued actions to ruin her dreams. 'Here's my paper, although I doubt with the shortened time that you'll find it to be up to my regular standards."

"I'm sure it's just fine, Rachel.' he said in a softer tone. 'Let's go, I'll let you out."

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A/N: It has been such a long time since updating any of my FanFic. But summer's coming, which means that I'll be updating much more. Like writing more for Harry Potter, and more for Glee. ;)

btw, Kurt or Finn next?


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